Manually Rejoining a Split Brain

Before you manually rejoin a split brain, you must decide which node has the database and other files you want to preserve; this machine becomes the new active node in the rejoined cluster. See Geographically Distributed Clusters for additional information.

Important: This procedure is necessary only if you have disabled the self-healing mechanism described in The Self-Healing Mechanism.

To manually rejoin a split brain:

Decide which of the active standalone servers has the database you want to use going forward.
The server with the database and other files you want to keep is the preserved server. The other server is the abandoned server.
Make sure the network connection is back up.
Use the Vocera Control Panel to force a failover on the abandoned standalone server. See Using the Cluster Menu.
The following events occur:
- The abandoned server enters discovery mode, sees the preserved server, and comes online as a standby node for it. This new standby node then performs a remote restore from the preserved server, which is now the single active node.
- The badges that were connected to the abandoned server find the active node and connect to it, because the active node is still in their cluster list.
- For Vocera Report Server machines that were connected to the abandoned server, you must check the cluster list, find the active node, and connect to it.
Note: Do not use the Force Restart button on the Cluster page of the System screen to restart the abandoned server. Use the Vocera Control Panel to force all services to restart.
If your organization uses Staff Assignment, update the cluster list in the Staff Assignment configuration file (app.config) on each standby node:
1. On each standby node, open the following file in a text editor:
  \vocera\data\applications\staffassignment\app.config
2. Edit the serverIP property to include the comma-separated list of IP addresses for the Vocera Voice Server cluster. Enter numeric IP addresses using dotted-decimal notation. Do not enter domain names.
3. Save your changes.
Note: You do not need to update the cluster list in the Staff Assignment configuration file on the active node. The serverIP property is updated automatically on the active node when someone logs into Staff Assignment.